


Mankind Redefined

by marianhawkes



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: A Very Canon-Divergent Novelisation Of The Main Game, Also Bad Jokes And Cute Relationship Dynamics, Alternate Title: Being Gay And Chinese In Post-Apocalyptia, Alternate Title: This Is What We Could Have Had Todd, Expect Courier Six And The Lone Wanderer, Expect Plot Twists and Betrayals And Lots Of Crazy Sci-Fi Wasteland Bullshit, Guest Appearances And Cameos From The Previous Two Games, I Put My Gay Little Hands All Over The Canon And Ripped It The Fuck Up, Nate Doesn't Exist, One Survivor Is A Lesbian Conspiracy Theorist, Please Hire Me Bethesda, Shaun Is Their Pet Cat, Thanks Todd For Making The Interesting Lore Happen While We're In Deep Freeze, The Other Survivor Is An Angry Nuka Girl, Timeline Divergence - All The Good Shit Happens Instead Of It Just Being Talked About, Twin Sister Sole Survivors, Two Sole Survivors, nobody is straight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-10-10 15:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10440510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marianhawkes/pseuds/marianhawkes
Summary: Sylvia and Scarlett Brooks had always been waiting for the world to end, but living through it in an underground freezer wasn't exactly what they had in mind. Together, they emerge into the ruins of the Boston Commonwealth with the intention of finding out what happened in Vault 111, putting together the pieces of their impossible survival - and tracking down the bastard who killed their mother and stole their cat. What they don't know is that their movements are being watched by more than a couple interested parties, and people in the cities like to talk too much - the twins don't pass by unnoticed, and their presence in the Commonwealth is one of many unexplained occurrences shaking up the wasteland. With paranoia and conspiracies building every day, and the city torn apart by violent civil conflict, the survivors' paths are driven apart in their search for answers. The Institute awaits them, allies and enemies are lurking in the shadows, and the world may not be ready for the truth that's waiting for them deep beneath the ground. War never changes, after all.





	1. Chapter 1

All the survivor had found near the train station was pain, zombies, and three cans of Pork 'N' Beans. She’d lived too damn long in the wasteland and she sure as hell was over it, verging on hysteria in some filthy bathtub surrounded by knife-wielding mannequins and thinking about the gunshot, the split-second hesitation and a concussive _bang_ louder than the end of the world - funny how quiet it had been, really, when the world exploded. Funny how easy it had been to slaughter those raiders outside like she was slicing up some meat for dinner. Taking down two of those psychos with one bullet had felt nearly as good as when she'd ripped the arm of that feral ghoul and smacked his friend across the face with it. She wondered what everyone would say if they saw the face of Nuka Quantum eating two-hundred-year-old beans and bludgeoning a man to death with a desk fan. What would her mother think?

God, she smelled like dead bodies. That was all she could think about, how she looked like a garbage bag and smelled like a corpse, how it felt like she had fire ants eating up the lining of her stomach - thousands of normal ones, maybe only seven of post-apocalyptic version. This was so goddamn stupid. She missed her old job, her old life, when the most she’d ever had to do for a living was dress up in that stupid astronaut outfit and tell everybody in the USA that you couldn’t beat the refreshing taste of Nuka Cola. And then, of course, the threat of internment camps, the threat of losing all three of her jobs, the threat of losing her career as the face of Nuka Quantum because while the Sino-American war was in full throttle, America’s favourite cola company was throwing up a theme park and taking her face off the billboards for looking _too commie_ for the public's liking. But at least she’d been somebody back then. At least the chances of falling into a grenade bouquet had been reasonably slim.

All her life, Scarlett Brooks had dreamed of living a little. This wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind.

“Screw this,” she snapped, throwing her frustration, along with her can of beans, at the mannequin with the party hat and the cleaver. “I don’t care that she’s dead, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, because I’m gonna die soon anyway, right? Right. I’m gonna step on a landmine or fall into a spiky pit or some raider’s gonna stab me to death while I’m wiping my ass with old newspapers. Or maybe, you know, I’ll just do it myself. Maybe I’ll stand in a radioactive puddle until my eyes fall out, or I’ll get naked and dance the Charleston in the middle of the Combat Zone, or I’ll just jump up and down on a landmine, that could be fun. Hell, I could crawl back into that stupid icebox with all my poor dead friends and freeze myself for another two hundred years, maybe that’ll make me feel better. Or I’ll  just lie down here in this stupid tub and die, that’s better than spending the rest of my life drinking cockroach milk or- or whatever the hell it is that normal people do around here, I’ll go be a tomato farmer and get shot to death, or take a wrong turn down a supermarket aisle and get shot to death, or- I think I’m gonna puke. How the hell could this ever be alright?! How the _hell_ could she have thought this would be alright? I’m gonna puke.”

And she did, all over the feet of the mannequins surrounding her while her sister held back her hair and said “When the hell did I ever say that any of this seemed alright?”

No. That wasn’t right. Her sister was dead. Her sister was dead, just like everyone she knew, and she’d be next. It hadn’t always been like this. When had things not been like this? She could remember the screaming, the running, the blur of her home around her as she left it all behind, she remembered the cat in Sylvia’s arms and the sting of the ice before the dark. She remembered the giant roaches and the skeletons, finding out that everything she’d known in the whole world was gone. But what about after that, when had the tide shifted, what changed?

Where to start?

* * *

_"Manual override initiated. Cryogenic stasis suspended."_

A gasp of air. A flutter of eyelids. A flex of fingers. Scarlett’s skin prickled against the bitter chill. Her muscles sang with adrenaline. Her eyes flew open and she was suspended in darkness, frozen still, observed by a man who was peering through the window of her - what was this? A cell? A coffin? Her breath clouded up the frozen air; every inch of her body was stinging with cold as the machine groaned and whirred around her. There was nothing in the world but this man and the cold, and every slow, painful breath. She stared into the stranger’s eyes, trying to understand why she couldn’t move, why she could barely breathe. When he spoke, she felt a stabbing sense of dread somewhere deep in her gut.

“This is the one. Chinese female, twenty-seven years old. Matches the description.”

“That’s her,” agreed a woman she couldn’t see. “Scarlett Brooks. Or at least, that’s what she’s going by now. Don’t know why they bothered with this one. Got her sister over here, Sylvia Brooks. Licensed engineer, ex-veteran. Looks like they’re twins.”

“Open ‘em up. Let’s see how they feel about this brave new world.”

"Opening now."

* * *

 

“There she is!” Sylvia cheered. “The girl with all the zip of Nuka Cola!”

“Nuka Quantum,” Scarlett corrected, beaming nonetheless in her silky pink pyjamas while her mom helped her paint her toenails over the coffee table. With rollers in her hair and a bright green face treatment on, she looked like one of those weird aliens from her sister’s sci-fi comics, but in less than twelve hours she’d be smiling for the cameras at Nuka World’s opening ceremony - an image that was still about as tangible as a daydream, for now. She chewed her lip with worry as she inspected Sylvia’s face, wondering if she’d bother to cover up her tired skin and bleary eyes in case she was dragged into the photographs too. Her sister looked like the product of what must have been another long night of partying, protesting, or researching her latest fixation - right now, it was Vault-Tec conspiracies and the hidden secrets of Wilson’s AtomaToys International. “I’m always happy to see you, Sylvie, but God, do you have to bring the cat around every time? You know I’m allergic.”

“You just hate him.”

“I hate his hair. All over me, all the time. Can’t say much for his personality either, but-”

“Take that back!”

A ring of the doorbell silenced what might have been a decently heated argument. Her mother blew out a sigh. “Damn salesman again. Sun, would you get that, dear? You know what Liu’s like when she walks around with her toenails wet. Like one of those supermarket Protectrons.”

Sylvia snorted, getting to her feet while Scarlett recovered from the use of their old names. She’d have to warn her mother about calling her Sun in front of all those people at Nuka World. It had taken enough convincing already for the company to keep her very Chinese face on the billboards, without having to stick a very Chinese name on top of things. She watched as Sylvia waddled towards the door in a perfect impression of Scarlett’s wet-toenails walk, before opening the door to the salesman that caused their mother daily headaches. With his stupid yellow bowler hat and matching oversized coat, she pitied the poor man with his awful fashion sense and presumably pretty boring life. At first, she couldn't imagine going door-to-door everyday to be yelled at, berated, and otherwise shut out by uninterested victims of his company's marketing ploy. Then she remembered her old waitressing job and started to envy him a little.

"Good morning, ma’am!" The stranger greeted. Before Sylvia could stop him, he had his foot rammed right against the door. Where Scarlett would have initiated a hasty but polite diversion tactic, Sylvia just stared at his foot like a second foot was growing out of it. "Vault-Tec calling, and it's a pleasure to visit you on this fine morning!" Even from her position on the couch she could see that his knuckles were white and his hands shaking as he clutched his company-issued clipboard, swaying perilously back and forth on the balls of his feet. Sweat was shining on his forehead despite the cool Autumn breeze.

"Look, we really don't want what you're selling, can you please get your van off my mom’s driveway?”

"Of course, of course!" He replied hastily, “This shouldn’t take more than a moment, ma’am, a moment of utmost importance! I’m here today representing Vault-Tec, the foremost builder of state-of-the-art fallout shelters! We’re here to secure your family’s future should the case of nuclear devastation ever come about! And oh, you can’t begin to know how happy I am to speak with you. I’ve been trying for days!” He faltered for a moment, but picked himself up again with jarring gusto. “As I said, it’s a matter of _utmost_ urgency! You really shouldn’t slam the door in my face again.”

* * *

 She couldn’t remember ever feeling this cold. Her teeth chattered and her whole body trembled as she stepped out into the empty Vault. Her legs gave out beneath her. She coughed violently at the sharp pain in her lungs, choking on stale air as she struggled to her feet. What was going on? Where was everybody? The stranger urged her to keep calm, asking her questions she could barely hear above the ringing in her ears as she gaped at the sight of her sister in the pod opposite her own. Still held tight in the strange contraption, Sylvia didn’t even look like she was breathing, still nursing the stupid cat she’d insisted on taking with her. Shaun was a hazy grey smudge in her arms, lying as still as his owner. Scarlett felt a jolt of panic. Was her sister alive? Was she okay? Her lips were blue with cold, her hair covered in a layer of frost. But then her eyes flickered open, lips parting in a silent gasp as the woman at her control panel released the hatch.

“What is this?” Scarlett croaked. “Is it over? Are we okay?”

“Almost,” said the stranger. “You’re gonna be just fine.”

“What- what about my mom, where is she? What about the others? Where _is_ everyone?”

“We have a lot to explain to you, ma’am. Try not to panic.”

* * *

Their bare feet twirled on the carpet, laughter ringing out across the room as Scarlett combined her make-up routine with a dance performance. Sylvia jived and jumped and whirled while Scarlett made dramatic come-hither motions and wriggled her hips. They both looked golden in the glow of daylight. Despite all that time they’d spent apart, both living their own lives, caught up in different things, she was grateful they’d remained close enough to fill this year with bad dancing and cooking disasters, sleepovers, movie nights, and all the other things they’d missed out on during their time apart.

Gosh, it was hard to believe that this almost hadn’t worked at all. Sylvia had lived through the _war,_ back when neither of them had understood what the word even meant. As if that wasn’t enough, her sister had been arrested and bailed out by their mom and dad more times than she could count, and her busy college schedule made it impossible to come visit. Meanwhile, Scarlett had been posing for billboards and magazines, trying to balance her Nuka Girl life with two other jobs, an ever-hectic love life, and the unspoken threat of internment.

But here they were, despite all of that, still goofing around like they were little kids before the biggest event in Scarlett’s life took place this afternoon. It looked like all the little disasters of their lives had bundled together to form something good, something that could last.

And they would. One way or another, she and Sylvia would last forever.

* * *

" _Critical failure in cryogenic array. All Vault residents must vacate immediately."_

A shriek of metal. A sharp hiss. Scarlett dropped to her knees. The world was a blur of bright sterility and glowing lights. She was all alone. The Vault was silent. She got to her feet. Her sister was still trapped inside the pod, feeling around for a way out. Teeth chattering, she headed towards the control panel, scanning the glowing buttons with increasing panic before taking her chances with the one in the centre. The hatch released. Sylvia collapsed into Scarlett’s arms, cold to the touch. Scarlett helped her regain her footing, waiting for something to start making sense. The two of them looked around, wearing matching expressions of confusion as they stood and waited for someone to appear. Where was the doctor Sylvia had fought with? Where were the guards outside the door? Scarlett could feel her heart pounding in her throat.

Something was very, very wrong.

"Sylv, did you- who-? Who was that? What’s happening? Where’s mom?”

“They took Shaun,” was all Sylvia could say, staring blankly down at her empty arms. “I had him a second ago, I… Scarlett, did Vault-Tec take my cat?!”

They had no idea how to act. There were no answers, no voices, no footsteps, no people. The silence was so invasive she could feel it in her throat, along with a sick feeling in her stomach. She couldn’t stand it, just looking around, not knowing, replaying the events of the past few moments in her head. Who had spoken to her just a minute ago? Where had they gone? Why couldn’t she remember getting back into the pod? This didn’t make any sense. How was this happening? She traced back over and over again trying to figure out when it had all gone wrong, but the freshest thing in her mind was the alarm. The warnings. The people rushing through the streets, rushing to the Vault, desperate to find safety as the world held its breath and prepared to end.

No. Not prepared. None of them had been prepared.

* * *

“Oh my God,” Sylvia breathed. “This is it. This is really happening.”

“No,” Scarlett sobbed, letting her mother wrap her up in her arms as she denied everything the reporter was telling her. “No, no, no, this can’t be real, this isn’t real. Not now, please not now, not today.”

She couldn't stare at the television screen any longer, couldn't stand the terror on the reporter’s face as he confirmed that, yes, there had been reports of blinding flashes all over the country. Yes, there had been confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania and that they’d lost all contact with their affiliate stations. Yes, it was happening. Yes, it was all over. Yes, the world was ending, but that seemed ridiculous when she looked out the window and found the world just as lovely as it had been only minutes, moments ago.

But as the reports continued, so did the panic. Neighbours were gathering on their front lawns, children and spouses and pets all in tow. Cars were starting up, front doors were slamming, voices were growing louder and angrier with every moment that passed. She could taste the fear on her tongue, feel it in the air like something physical. This couldn’t be happening. Despite the increasing commotion, it was so _beautiful_ outside, with amber leaves rustling on the trees, the sun shining down across emerald lawns and white picket fences. She looked out and saw gleaming cars and mailboxes and barbecues, pink lawn flamingos, dog houses; everything looked so normal, so permanent, how could this possibly come to an end? She reached out and took Sylvia’s hand, all three of them holding tightly onto each other, staring.

Just staring, and hoping, and hoping.

But the moment couldn't last, of course it couldn't. They needed to get to the Vault. Scarlett knew it, they all did, as  she stormed through the house in search of something to take with he. Sylvia stood at a loss in the living room, scooping Shaun up into her arms. "I need my tools," she called out, as Scarlett rushed back into the living room empty-handed. Her clothes, her makeup, her mother’s photo albums, she longed so desperately to take them with her, but there wasn’t any time, something her sister didn’t seem to realise as she said, "I- I need to get my things. I can’t go without all my stuff. What about the cat? We have to bring Shaun, we- we have to.” She rested her forehead against the cat’s face and held him against her. “This is happening, isn’t it?”

Scarlett could only nod, and feel her heart break in two as she pinpointed the exact second her little sister realised there was nothing they could do to stop any of this. Her mother was the first to take action “We need to go, Sun. Liu, come on, hurry - no, leave the bag, leave everything. We have to say goodbye.”

Before they reached the front door, their mother stopped in front of the only person they would get to say goodbye to. “I’m so sorry, dear,” she said to the ridiculous robot who’d been as good as family this year. “We love you. Promise me you’ll stay safe.”

“As long as your family stays safe and sound, I’ll be just fine, mum!”

“I’ve got all the blueprints for that new upgrade in the garage,” Sylvia said. “I promise I wasn’t gonna forget.”

“Oh, forget about all that. Hurry! Go!”

As she left her home behind, Scarlett could have sworn she heard the robot say goodbye.

* * *

 “Oh my God. Mom!”

The word fell from Scarlett’s lips like an answer, like a prayer. Her mother was asleep in the ice. Her fingers slammed down on the control panel. Her mother was okay, she was alive, she was alright. The hatch lifted. She was there. She was still. Scarlett stood back and waited for her to wake up - any second now, any second, her eyes would open, they’d be alright, they’d find others, they'd get help. Her mom would look after them, she'd be okay. She was far too strong to not be okay.

“Mom? Mommy, wake up, please. Please, please, wake up, wake up!”

She put her arms around her, bitten by the ice that coated her body, shaking her so gently, so carefully, pleading for her to just _wake up_ and realise that they’d made it through this, whatever this was. She needed to see her eyes, the way they crinkled at the corners when she smiled - and she’d smile when she saw her daughter’s face, of course she would, she’d laugh just a little at how terrified she looked, and tell her there was nothing to be afraid of. Any second.

“Mom, please, come on, we- we made it, it’s okay, we’re alright. Mom, come on, it’s over! We’re okay!”

A sob escaped her. Pain was burning through her veins like something nuclear - this wasn’t happening, how could this be happening? This was her _life,_ this was everything she had, and all she could do was cry as if that could somehow ease her grief. No, no, not grief, grief meant she was gone and she _wasn’t,_ she couldn’t be, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be, this was _her mom_ , this was her best friend, with her kind eyes and sarcastic remarks and ridiculously long hugs, her stupid jokes and their days at the park, this couldn’t be gone, not yet, not now.

“Please, no. No, no, mommy, no, please, not her. Please! Sylvia? Sylvia, help me wake her up or- or _something,_ please, please!”

All her sister did was wipe her tears away with her sleeves. There was no making this okay.

“This can’t be happening,” she said, over and over again as she fell back into Sylvia’s arms, trying so hard to lose herself in meaningless words of comfort, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from her mom's body, frozen in the ice. Someone had done this to her. Someone with a scar on the left side of his face, someone with a gruff voice and leather armour, somebody had found their way in here and killed her mom. Who the hell had done this? Why had they murdered everybody but Scarlett and her sister? Why would Vault-Tec do this to them? Had Sylvia been right? Was this some kind of sick experiment? It didn’t matter. They needed to get out of here, they needed to find whoever did this, because right now, the only thing in the world that Scarlett Brooks - _Liu Xhang_ \- understood, was that this wasn’t an accident. They were alive for a reason, and she had to find out why. Sobs rattled her chest as she took the wedding ring from her mom’s finger and put it on her own, one last reminder of the family she was leaving behind, of the life she wouldn’t find intact when they got back home.

There was a small, strange comfort in hearing the last words they would ever speak in this room - Sylvia's barely audible  _I love you_ to the frozen body they had to leave behind.

“We’re going to figure this out,” Scarlett whispered. “I promise. I won’t let you down, mom."

* * *

 

The running had been the worst of it. Despite the frenzy of people around her, Scarlett couldn't help but notice just how beautiful home truly was, even as it blurred past her in hues of green and amber, the view rushing by like the river beneath them as they pounded up the hill. An army chopper droned overhead, whipping up a cruel wind as it went. The Vault-Tec van could be heard from below, blaring an emergency broadcast. _“All registered citizens should seek shelter in Vault 111 immediately. This is not a test.”_ Nobody was ready for this, no one was prepared; everyone around her was all dressed up for a day at work or a stroll in the park, how could they have predicted the end would come so soon?

Even now, she knew that not all of them would make it. Some families had packed themselves into their cars and driven off, believing they’d be safe once they reached the city or the coastline. People were lugging large suitcases up the hill, some rushing to pack them back up when the contents spilled out over the path.

But when the killing started, even fewer stood a chance.

* * *

 

“What _are_ those things?” Scarlett demanded, breathless as they headed down the corridor. There had been people here just moments ago, sympathetic Vault-Tec staff consoling worried neighbours, doctors leading groups of people through the corridors. Now, silence, and a gaping hole in her chest. Where was the couple crying over their family out in Washington? Were they dead too? “Those- those machines, what are they? Why did they put us in there?”

“They’re cryogenic containment chambers,” Sylvia replied. “Congratulations! Thanks to Vault-Tec, you too can experience what it’s like to be an actual popsicle, miles and miles beneath the ground! God, this would be hilarious if it wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Scarlett just looked at her, letting her sister cope however she needed to. There would be time for mourning, but not yet. Maybe when they returned to the surface and figured out what state the world was in. Maybe when the bastard who’d killed their mother suffered the same fate.

“I didn’t get _this_ close to a fist-fight with that doctor for no reason,” she continued. “I tried to tell you what those things were. I mean, I didn’t _know,_ not for certain, but I knew those things looked too much like oversized test tubes and not enough like an actual decontamination chamber - which, by the way, is just a shower. Maybe bigger than your average shower, who knows? But a shower.”

"Are you sure?" She asked, trying to keep her talking so there was more sound in this Vault than her useless calls for help as they beat through room after empty room, stopped at every turn by sealed doors.

“We’re covered in frost, Scar, I’m pretty sure. Unless you mean the showers, because I’m certain about that - I mean, I’ve been in those things, too much rad exposure in the lab back in school, like, three times, maybe seven. Besides, I did a little research after that rumour went around about Robert House freezing himself with cryogenics, I know what I’m talking about. Sort of. I read an article. Well, no, it- it was a comic book. A really factual comic book.”

“God, I should have listened to you. I just wanted for everything to be alright. I should have believed you.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Do you remember that time I dragged you out of town to spot UFOs with my college club?”

“It was dark and I got three spiders in my hair.”

“And all we found were some drunk high school kids making out in a shack and a suspicious balloon caught in a tree.”

“Yeah, it said Happy Anniversary,” she remembered, laughing despite herself. “It was so stupid.”

“And then every time I’d tell you something and you wouldn’t believe me you’d be like-” She yanked up her voice to an annoyingly high pitch “- ugh, Sylvia, you tell me this crap all the time and it’s never true, d’you remember that time you dragged me out into the middle of nowhere with those stupid college club weirdos and I stepped in dog shit in the dark?” On a more serious note, she continued, “That’s why you didn’t believe me this time. It’s alright. I mean, I guess it’s not alright ‘cause of all this.” She made a vague gesture at everything around them, which included an awful lot of science equipment and not a single human being. “But it isn’t your fault. Promise.”

Although her voice echoed through the endless corridors, the Vault did not respond. Neither did Scarlett, too shaken to make another sound until they made their way into the reactor level. That was when the next impossibility of Vault 111 greeted them. Scarlett made a sound of terror as the biggest cockroach she’d ever seen scuttled out in front of them - not big like a large cockroach, but big like a small puppy. While Scarlett backed away, her sister reached for the discarded police baton on the nearest shelf and gave a hard swing. There was a stomach-flipping crunch. The shell of the cockroach caved in and the insect fell to the floor, legs kicking and twitching grotesquely before she stomped down on its exposed underside, covering her shoe with thick yellow gunk.

“Giant roaches,” Sylvia said, staring down at her gunky foot with vague surprise. “Giant roaches. Well. This is just all kinds of terrible, isn’t it?”

When they reached the Overseer’s Office, one fresh terror was replaced by another. And this time, Scarlett didn’t buy it. The sight in front of them was a joke. The Overseer of Vault 111 was slumped over his desk, not a body, but a skeleton, lying right next to a spilled cup of coffee, a pistol, and a comic book. What, were they supposed to believe he’d killed himself when they’d seen him standing by the entrance a few minutes ago? Were they supposed to believe that in the space of ten minutes, this man had not only committed suicide, but had turned into an actual, real life skeleton? This didn’t look _real,_ this wasn’t a body, just some hollow-eyed prop from a bad movie set. Fresh corpses didn’t look like this, of course they didn’t. “This is all some kind of experiment, isn’t it? It’s just like you said. None of this is real, right? Come on, Sylvie, look at it. This is just a movie set. Sylvia, come on. Sylv?”

But Sylvia was deathly pale and moving towards the terminal next to the Overseer’s body, keeping a cautious distance from the skeleton as she scrolled through file after file. Scarlett forced herself to not believe it, needed to continue not believing it because if she did, that meant the world up above really had been destroyed, meant her mother really was gone along with all her friends, If this was real, that meant… No, no, she could picture it now, one of those stories that Sylvia and her friends would come up with: Vault 111, designed to test the reactions of unknowing subjects to a ‘sudden nuclear attack’ and study their behaviour upon being put under extreme distress. If she could just play along for a while until it was all over, then they could all be fine. Mom would be okay. Sylvia would finally able to expose Vault-Tec for everything they’d done, maybe get paid for leaking the information to the local news. Maybe she could finally afford her own coffee maker.

What Sylvia found on the terminal put an end to the denial. She began to read out loud, skimming through documents at a pace Scarlett could barely keep up with. “Too many words on one page,” her sister said, “all I’m seeing right now is _classified_ and _cadaver_. Look, just- just look at it.”

With every click and scroll, her greatest fears were confirmed. Vault 111, designed to test the long-term effects of suspended animation on unaware human subjects. Ordered to perform capital punishment on anyone who attempted to evacuate prematurely. Utilising unused cryogenic pods to store the bodies of those who didn’t survive the procedure. An experiment built to outlast the war.

This wasn’t funny any more. This wasn’t a fun debate topic for Sylvia’s stupid conspiracy club, this was real. Vault-Tec had done all of this, they’d let this happen, they’d let those people die. According to the files, the radiation hadn’t cleared after the hundred-and-eighty day waiting period. Was that how long they'd been here for, at the very least? The Overseer refused to open the door. There’d been anarchy, food shortages, lack of medicine, residents going insane. There’d been a mutiny.

Maybe it was wrong, maybe it was all wrong, but it didn’t matter if they’d been in here for days or weeks or longer than that because neither of them could stand another second here, bones rattled by the cold, brains growing more vague and disoriented by the minute as the effects of hypothermia made themselves known. They needed to get out. Sylvia found the option to activate emergency override, that was the only way she’d be able to open the door ahead. A ten-digit passcode. “Alright, uh, come help me with this, Scar. Ten numbers. How about…” She entered the date that Vault-Tec had been founded, plus the number of years since then.

ERROR - TWO ATTEMPT(S) REMAINING.

With growing anxiety, they did a little more searching through the other files and found the Overseer’s age and birthday.

ERROR - ONE ATTEMPT(S) REMAINING.

“Stupid goddamn useless piece of ugly Vault-Tec garbage!” Sylvia yelled, slamming her fists against the monitor. "Dammit! Scarlett, help me, we need something important, something significant, anything.”

So what was left? What ten digits were significant enough to grant access to the radioactive remains of post-apocalyptic Boston? She wracked her brains for significance but all she could come up with were the sticky notes Mom left on the fridge, sometimes sticking them to Codsworth so her kids wouldn’t forget which groceries to bring home. She thought of significance and remembered the way she and Sylvia danced around the living room together, singing along to The Ink Spots and Elvis, bare feet twirling on the carpet, sunlight spilling through the windows. Significance was the hours she’d spend in the garage with Sylvia, filling her in on the latest drama of her life while her sister fixed up radios and jukeboxes or built upgrades for Codsworth, looking so at ease with a wrench in her hand and her cat winding around her legs. Significance meant Nuka Cola, meant billboards and magazines with her face on them, meant Nuka World and her best friends and her adventures in the city. It meant her mother’s house in Sanctuary Hills, but all of that was gone now.

So what was left?

* * *

 

Together they raced for the platform as security guards barked orders. More helicopters whirred above their heads, more officers screamed for them to hurry as they joined the final group of Sanctuary Hills residents. “Almost there! We made it!” Around twenty of them were all huddled together, hugging themselves and each other, ready to wake up from this nightmare any second now. Scarlett found herself at her mother’s side, pulling Sylvia close. “We’re gonna be okay,” she promised. “I love you both so much.” She held the two of them close, and together they looked out over the sleepy town below them, holding onto that final image of swaying trees, emerald grass, the lazy clouds that floated across the sky.

Grief gripped her heart like a vice as she thought of all those people left to burn. She thought of silly things: her wardrobe, her scrapbooks, her houseplants. She remembered her friends in the city that she’d never said goodbye to, remembered her fashion designs, all her favourite parks and diners, the drive-in and Fallon’s department store. She held onto memories of fresh air and wildflowers, holiday seasons spent at home and adventures found in the city she’d fallen in love with. She remembered the words to the song that had played on the jukebox this morning, before the news came, before the peace was shattered, before the world ended.

_"One more tomorrow filled with love the whole day through."_

A flashbulb went off and the world went up in flames. An impossible blast unfurled in the sky and the earth was swept away in a colossal wave of smoke. A blink of the eye and the the town was a shell, the beams and slats of every home all swept away by the force that nearly knocked her off her feet. Her eyes stung with the heat of the explosion as cars and buildings were tossed into the air. Billboards and telephone poles dissipated like dark clouds while the world shook beneath her feet. As the dust climbed higher and higher up the mountain, Scarlett Brooks shut her eyes, held her family close, and let the flames eat her body alive. Strange how a bomb would be the final thing to bring them together.

_"And then tomorrow I'd beg for one more tomorrow with you."_

* * *

 

That was it. Significance was the bombs that tore apart everything they had, so she reached for the terminal and typed in 23-10-77. Four digits left. The twins shared a look as they searched for an answer. Sylvia found it on the clock that ticked above the desk - or rather, it didn’t tick. The hands were frozen still. There was a moment of hesitation. A deep breath. Sylvia typed 0-9-4-7 into the terminal and pressed enter.

ACCESS GRANTED.

Relief was their collective exhale. They did it. It was time to move. Sylvia reluctantly took the gun from the desk and Scarlett marched force with the police baton. Together, they were trembling, angry, desperate things, and together they headed through the evacuation tunnel and hoped to God that this wasn’t the end.

The entry chamber that followed was just as empty and quiet as every other room they’d passed through, aside from the scuttling roaches who nibbled on a few fallen skeletons. Remarkably, the Pip-Boys around the corpses’ bony wrists were still intact, three of them just lying there, waiting for someone to turn them on. Scarlett quickly cleared out the roaches for Sylvia, who bent down to retrieve one of the Pip-Boys. Scarlett did the same, gingerly shaking the gadget off its owner’s skeletal hand. “You think these things will be useful?” She asked, imitating her sister’s every movement as she locked the device around her arm and turned it on.

“Are you kidding?” Sylvia replied, admiring the gadget from every angle. “I’ve always wanted one of these.” The Pip-Boy was choked with dust but whirring audibly, streams upon streams of unintelligible code spilling down the screen. The tech was a little beyond Scarlett, so she allowed her sister to yank out the cord from the back of her Pip-Boy and plug it into the control panel to activate the remote access. In two simple motions, she twisted the plug and punched down on the red button.

The Vault gave a creaking yawn. An alarm wailed overhead; lights flashed all around them as a familiar detached voice advised them to _please stand by_. A huge device on the ceiling barrelled towards the entrance, giving off sparks as it went. A few moments was all it took for the machine to unscrew the colossal door like a pickle jar. The walkway shuddered out and the sole survivors of Vault 111 headed down it, stepping onto the platform below and holding each other tight as they headed up and up and up towards daylight, towards the remnants of the Boston Commonwealth, towards the only chance they had of finding out what was left for them up there, if anything. They looked up to the sky far above, knowing that their answers were out there, knowing that so much more was waiting for them, knowing that no matter what happened, there was no turning back.

_“Enjoy your return to the surface! We hope you enjoyed your stay.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**SYLVIA**

* * *

 

So, it was looking pretty bad already from up here.

The air left her lungs when she saw what was left of Sanctuary Hills. A skeleton, a shell, a ghost of what it had been only minutes, moments ago, before the world had fallen at their feet. This wasn’t home anymore. This place had forgotten all the childhood memories she’d made here with her sister, images of hide-and-seek, backyard barbecues and lemonade stands all burned away like the horizon. It was hard not to look down and see the playful dogs yapping in the gardens, the kids running around in their Halloween costumes just a little bit too early. All of that was gone now. 

There was nothing left. Every shade of natural life had been scorched away by the bombs, the surrounding trees reduced to blackened spikes in the dead earth. Houses squatted about the barren street like feral cats, mangled and filthy and left too long alone. Some had been swept to the foundations, leaving nothing but rust and rubble in their wake. Debris was strewn about the neighbourhood and unsteady telephone poles stabbed through the sky. Even vehicles were smashed and overturned, some hunched and predatory like the roaches below them, others twisted beyond recognition, just like their neighbourhood, just like their home. Scarlett sank to her knees. Sylvia moved down beside her. For a while they just stayed there, buckling beneath the weight of it all. The ruined earth seemed almost tranquil when Sylvia shut her eyes, blocking out everything but the uncaring ambience, birds and wind and the river that drifted lazily by.

But the survivors had spent too long frozen in time, and no matter how long they stayed there, the world refused to rewind. They couldn’t stay on this platform, shell-shocked in the freezing air, trying to assure each other that this was not the end. This  _ was  _ the end, of course it was. Hadn't it been such a long time coming? Someday, somehow, Sylvia would find a way to make this all feel fine. But first she  had to move, all tight fists and terror as she got to her feet, arms feeling empty without her pet bundled in her arms, without her mother’s arm linked around her own. “We have to do something,” she said. “We have to start making some kind of  _ sense  _ of all this, why they let us live, why they took Shaun. And we’re getting him back. Vault-Tec doesn’t get to have my cat.”

“We’re finding that bastard with the scar,” Scarlett swore. “No one hurts our mom and gets to live with it. No one takes our lives away and gets to live with it, I swear to God. We’ll find him. We’ll make sure he remembers our names.”

More skeletons were scattered about the hill as they headed down, moving past the crumbling Vault-Tec billboard -  _ prepare for the future! -  _ and the fallen remnants of the gate. Scarlett’s heels clicked on the rotten wood as they stepped over the bridge and into Sanctuary Hills. The buildings were choked by wiry brambles, the white picket fences all falling apart. Neither sister spoke as they took in the busted streetlamps, the slumping rooftops, the swarms of insects that blew past them like dark clouds. But when they found what remained of their childhood home, the pain jolted into something else entirely. This kind of pain was personal. The windows were completely shattered, shards of glass dusting the scorched living room. From what she could see, the wallpaper was peeling, the couches were burned, the television had disappeared and their holotape player was busted into splinters. But one thing that struck her most were the hedges beneath the windowsill. They weren’t wild and overgrown like the rest of the landscape, but cut in an unnatural straight line.

That was when a familiar figure floated out from behind the house, drifting idly towards the mailbox. 

“Codsworth!” Sylvia cried. “Codsworth, oh my God, is that-? Are you real?”

“As I live and breathe!” He cried, sensors whirring, eyes whirring, everything whirring in time with Sylvia's brain. “It’s- it’s really you! The  _ two  _ of you!”

“Talking robot,” Scarlett said, staring at Codsworth in blank surprise. “Whole world’s gone and there’s a stupid talking robot. I think I’m gonna pass out.”

And she did.

* * *

 

“Survivors? Ah, well, I’m afraid that’s- well, you see, survival these days is…” 

It was the end of the world and Sylvia was playing games on a dead man’s Pip-Boy, empty expression unchanging even when she died three times over. It was the end of the world and Scarlett was sitting on her mom’s ruined couch, both of them missing her with an ache in their chest like a gunshot wound. Even with the Pip-Boy game flashing green in the centre of her vision, Sylvia was tuned in to every word Codsworth spoke to the pair of them, using any distraction she could find to s hake away the image of her mother’s pain-twisted corpse in the cryo chamber.

“But look at you! A little worse for wear, the pair of you, but still together, how delightful! I hope you find the place spick and span, like mum always says! Where is Miss Xhang, anyway? And what about young Shaun? I’m sure the handsome devil will need feeding by now! You should call him in, Miss Sylvia, oh, I’d love to see him.”

Sylvia twisted around on the crouch, a tightly wound tangle of limbs as she said, “Codsworth, we, uh… we have something to tell you, buddy.” She felt ready to cry again, but scrubbed away her tears before they could fall. “Mom’s gone. And Shaun, he- he got stolen,” she explained, hurrying away from the subject of Song Xhang. “We made it to the Vault, thought the whole  _ better future underground  _ thing was for real, you know, maybe. They put us in these- these cryogenic containment chambers, there was somebody in there who took us out, and all I remember after that is… Well, it all kind of happened again. First we were out, trying to figure out what was going on, and then we were waking up again, and Shaun, he… they took him. Whoever was in that Vault with us, they took him, and everybody else down there is dead, even Mom. I don’t know what happened, but we need to find out. For her.”

“Oh, Sylvia, these things you’re saying - such terrible things! It sounds to me like you two are suffering from high levels of stress. Too much time in the workshop, is that it? How about a day off while I take care of the housework and bring young Shaun in for dinner? You and Miss Scarlett could make a day of it, maybe go to the park together. My sensors tell me the weather’s to stay clear and dry, maybe a little bit of radioactivity, nothing to worry about!” He said with gusto. “It’s a shame your good shoes didn’t make it, Miss Scarlett, oh, such a  _ waste,  _ all those outfits you loved so much… But no matter! I’m sure you’ll find a way to look wonderful, regardless of the, ah, current state of things. No need to worry, none at all!”

“What, you mean my entire suitcase is gone?” Scarlett asked, turning white. “What about the yellow dress from Fallon’s? What about the hats, Codsworth?" She buried her head in her hands, heaving a deep groan of anguish. “Is there anything left?”

“What about Shaun’s pumpkin costume?” Sylvia asked. If something as stupid as a cat costume would make her sister even the slightest bit happier, she’d tear up the earth trying to find it. “Oh, come on, we spent hours on that! Did anything make it out?”

“Well, you two certainly made it without a scratch! But a nuclear bomb and two hundred years of decay would ruin most treasured possessions, I’m afraid. No matter, though: the television is still alive and well - er, wherever it is - and I’m sure young Shaun is prowling around the neighbourhood somewhere! How about we go look for him, I bet the young cat is just dying for some dinner by now.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Well, perhaps he isn’t hungry just yet - maybe he found a bird to snack on, or a squirrel maybe? Granted, you don’t see as many squirrels around these days, but no matter, we’ll have a search for him when you two are feeling up to it, how does that sound?”

“That’s impossible,” Sylvia laughed, saying it over and over again as she stood up on unsteady legs. She found herself willing desperately for the light switch to work, for the fallen back door to swing up from the ground and back onto its hinges. She’d been resting on that couch only minutes ago, wishing for better coffee and rambling happily about the jukebox she was building, just she and her sister enjoying each other’s company together as Sanctuary Hills shook itself awake. 

Feeling drunk and lightheaded, she made her way towards the kitchen unit, remembering every cooking disaster she and Scarlett had laughed through together, staring at the sticky notes on the fridge and remembering that she’d never found the time to pick up the ingredients for Mom’s blueberry pie. It all came back to her. Her mother was the heart of the home that was ruined around them as she wandered aimlessly down the hall, a blanket of orange leaves crunching beneath her feet while Scarlett followed behind, not saying anything, just looking, and grieving, and taking a long, shuddering breath as they began to open every drawer in their childhood bedroom, then their mother’s bedroom, finding nothing but a spotted red bandana that Song always kept for housework days. The wardrobe was nothing more than a bundle of scorched wood to match the rest of the furniture. 

She returned to the kitchen feeling more like memories than flesh. She was a ghost, they both were, hollow echoes of a life that had been blown to pieces and forgotten about. In this world, they’d been dead for centuries. This ached in a way that did not even exist two hundred years ago. This wasn’t a heartbreaking visit to a ruined home, this was something else. This was a haunting.

“Oh, Sylvia! It’s been just  _ horrible!”  _ Codsworth bawled. “Two centuries with no one to talk to, no one to serve! Oh, how I  _ missed  _ mum and her girls. I made you dinner every evening but you never came home! I even put food out for Mr Shaun, that darling little kitten, but he was gone too! I spent the first -  _ ten - years -  _ trying to keep the floors waxed, but nothing gets out nuclear fallout from vinyl wood. Nothing! And don’t get me  _ started  _ about the futility of dusting a collapsed house. And the garage! Ruined! Those blueprints you drew up for me, oh, Miss Sylvia, all gone! All of it! And have you  _ seen  _ the-”

“Stay with me, Codsworth - hey, shush, listen, it’s alright, just- just listen to me. We need all the help we can get right now, pal. Somebody took Shaun, somebody- somebody  _ killed  _ Mom, and if you’re right about this whole two-hundred-years-later thing, I think he might have been… you know, from  _ now.  _ Leather armour, weird scar, didn’t look like a suburban kind of guy, know what I mean?”

“One of  _ those  _ ruffians, hm?” Sylvia felt that if Codsworth could have shuddered, he would have. 

“Whoever he is, and  _ where _ ver, he knows what happened to us. He’s got something to do with at least some parts of it, maybe the most important ones. Any idea where we should start looking for a balding guy with a creepy scar? How many people are even out here?”

Codsworth hummed for a moment in thought. “I suppose you could pay a visit to Concord."

“There are people in Concord?” Scarlett asked. “Do you think they’ll help us?”

“Well, ah, I can’t be entirely certain of that, Miss Scarlett. The last time I paid a visit they had a swell time beating me with sticks, but, oh, that was  _ years  _ ago. Perhaps they’ll be a tad more hospitable these days, it’s hard to say. So many different communities moving in then disappearing, it’s a strange time we live in these days. Ah, but here’s an idea!” He said, with a hint of optimism. “How about we search the neighbourhood for anything useful? Scavengers have been in and out of this place for the past two centuries, I’m afraid, but I did my best to keep everything intact. Though, as you can see, there wasn’t much left for me to look after.”

The sisters glanced at each other. 

“You’ve done a great job, Codsy,” Sylvia assured him. “But I think maybe we should be getting out of here.”

“Oh, my, well… if you’re certain, Miss Brooks. But believe me, the world isn’t what you remember. Marauders, bandits, scoundrels, all kinds of filthy creatures - bloatflies, radroaches, deathclaws and the like. Please, do be careful.”

“With that flamethrower you’ve got there, I’ll bet we’ll be just fine.”

He paused for a moment. “Am I-? You mean-? Am I coming too?”

“We’re family, right? We’re not gonna leave you behind. Not again.”

* * *

 

For a while, they just sat up on the rooftop of Red Rocket Truck-Stop and looked out at the scorched town below, wondering how the hell they were going to get through this. Lost in quiet thought, the survivors remembered a view that had once been kind of pretty. Now, too many buildings had their roofs caving in like the lids of rotting jack-o-lanterns. The jagged silhouette of a collapsing overpass cut into the horizon like an infected wound, and rows upon rows of gnarled trees unfolded in the distance like a chain of paper dolls. Debris was strewn about like toys thrown from a child’s cot, and the smiling face of a Nuka Girl on a distant billboard had been scorched away by two hundred years of grime, dust and nuclear fire. It was almost funny to think that the last Nuka Girl still standing was sitting right next to her, sorting through the stolen beauty products they'd salvaged from a neighbour's house. 

“You know what the worst thing about this is?” Scarlett asked.

“Gotta be the radiation,” Sylvia guessed through a sugary mouthful of her favourite cereal. She’d almost sobbed with happiness to discover that most of the stuff at Red Rocket Truck-Stop was still intact, although it didn’t smell so much like fuel and nostalgia anymore. More like cockroaches and crap. “No, no, is it the devastation of the entire world? Or is it the death of all our family and…?” 

She trailed off, slowly munching the cereal as the reality sank in deeper. She couldn’t even remember the last thing she’d said to her mother in those panicked and grief-swollen minutes spent in Vault 111. Now, all that remained of her was the red bandana Scarlett had tied in her hair.

“Oh, great, now I feel stupid for what I was gonna say.”

“Are you kidding? All of this is stupid. Everybody we know is dead except mom’s robot butler - and oh, look, he’s hacking mole rats to death down there, because those things are radioactive and  _ glowing  _ now. We almost got killed by giant flies in the neighbour’s house. At least one of my theories about Vault-Tec turned out to be true, and now we’re heading out to Concord to face death itself because a guy with a scar on his face  _ probably  _ had something to do with us getting frozen in cryogenic containment chambers,  _ and  _ he stole my cat. Just tell me the stupid thing you miss, maybe it’ll actually sound normal.”

“Alright, okay, it’s just... I just really, really wanted today to be perfect. I mean, no, not _today_ , but, you know, the day everything happened. The Nuka World opening ceremony finally happening, finally being real.” She almost laughed. “I was gonna be the girl who everybody lined up to see. All the hard work, all the extra jobs, the useless photography and journalism degree, all so I could finally be America’s dream girl and spend the rest of my whole life being on posters and magazines. And Nate, remember him? I thought, you know, maybe that would end up being something." She hastily brushed away a tear. "He was getting discharged in a month. If we'd had more time, maybe... And then the stupid bombs dropped, just like that. It isn’t fair. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

"Scarlett, it was always going to be like this. I know how much you wanted to pretend like it wasn't happening, but I was there yesterday at the food riots down in Roxbury. I mean, not _yesterday_ , but you get it. The US army killed four people. I used to be a part of that, I used to be one of them, and they laughed together about who they were gonna shoot first. They said hunger wasn't an excuse for civil disobedience. They said nuclear bombs weren't a fucking threat to the world. We've both seen the war. You had to know it wasn't gonna stop, not until - well, this."

"I didn't see the war like you did," Scarlett replied, her voice soft as she stared down at her feet. "I took photos, that's why I was there. I took photos and got paid. And, yes, I saw it, _God_ , I saw so much, but you were there. You were in it."

“Tell me about it. I almost got my guts blown out in the field thinking that the war was gonna be the only thing that could stop China from dropping those nukes. Then I got home, got back on my feet, signed seventy-eight petitions, got arrested all those times for disturbing the peace, leading protests, smashing some stuff, all because I didn’t want to spend my future fighting mutated cockroaches and eating two-hundred-year-old cereal. And here we are. How many times was I arrested, anyway?” She asked, grinning a little despite herself. “Nine? Ten?”

“It wasn’t  _ that  _ bad.”

“Go on,” she urged, still smiling wickedly. “Was it ten?”

“Twelve.”

“I knew it!” She clapped her hands together and laughed. “Mom and Dad bailed me out every time, and  _ every  _ time they told me that was it, I was coming to live with them until I stopped breaking the law in the name of justice, and it's not like the war was ever gonna go that far anyway.” Her expression eased away from smugness and became gradually more annoyed as she continued, “And every time, I told them to go to hell because both of them were lying, selfish government assholes who sent innocent people to their deaths just to get a paycheck, and then they’d tell me I should have been more like my sister, and then I’d tell them that my sister was too busy throwing her clothes off for Nuka Cola to be interested in the war or anything else and-” 

“And then they’d yell at you until you’d leave and get arrested again a few days after. I remember” 

“They thought we’d be so good, the promising war photographer and army veteran. Can you imagine even one of us being married with kids right now? Good career, husband, house, as if the world wasn’t ending, oh, any day now. They wanted all that for us, and now their peace-disturbing problem child is stuck out in the wastelands with the face of Nuka Cola Quantum, like either of us even have a clue." Her face crumpled. “Who’s gonna bail me out of jail now?"

“Sylv, we’re gonna be just fine,” Scarlett promised, taking Sylvia’s hand. “Forever, remember?”

“Forever sounds good to me. Let’s figure all this out.”

“We will. Somehow, we’ll make some kind of sense of all this. We’ll find a way.”

“And let’s never die. It wouldn’t be fair. We can’t just survive the end of the world and then die someday.”

“Then we won’t. It’ll be you and me and a hundred kittens until the next apocalypse.”

“I’ll be ready.”

For a while they just sat there on the rooftop, looking out and looking out, trying to make some sense of it all. The wind whispered by with vague disinterest, and a soft piano piece lilted from the radio inside the gas station, promising people, somewhere out there, caring enough to broadcast it. It seemed, for a little while, at least, that they might have been the only two people left in the world.

* * *

_ "Hi, uh, this is Travis from, uh... well, you know, from Diamond City Radio. Not much going on out there except, you know, the usual. Some mutants sort of making, well, uh, a bit of trouble outside the city walls. Diamond City, I mean. And, well, the super kind of mutants. I mean, not super as in they're good, I mean super because... well, super mutants. Uh, but I guess that'll probably be dealt with. I mean, I think we're handling that pretty okay. I'm gonna play some music, if- if that would be good. I think that would be a good idea. This is, well, you know this one. I think. It's All Over But the Crying by the Ink Spots. You'd think we would've started making happier music already but... nope." _


End file.
